Soma

Dmitri's door was closed, but the glass window allowed the light of his office to be cast into the hall. Lauren stepped quickly past the glass, Dmitri far too engrossed in his work to even glance up. She heaved a sigh of relief, no matter how temporary her lack of exposure was. If she could just make it to her office, she could gather her wits and compose herself, maybe settle into the ordeal that awaited her over the next few days.

"Lauren?!" Rachel squealed as the blonde girl tried to race past her friend's office. "What the hell are you doing?!"

Lauren wanted to hush the girl, but she refrained. Instead, she turned, and stopped in Rachel's doorway, her naked body basked in the overhead lighting.

Rachel looked terrified for her friend, and it was apparent that she thought Lauren had entirely lost her mind. Given her dress, and her presence back in the office in said dress, Lauren couldn't blame the redhead for her reaction.

Lauren briefly recounted her back-and-forth with the psychiatrist, explaining that the only way she was going to overcome this psychosomatic disorder was by completing the acquisition, thereby ridding herself of her stress and the consequent clothing allergy. While she didn't specifically say that Dr. Adams had supported her on her decision, most of the explanation led Rachel to believe just that, Lauren repeatedly using phrases like, "we thought" or "we decided." While she owned up to her humiliation at returning to the office in the nude, she stressed the curative properties of confronting her anxiety and, at the same time, aiding the company in its acquisition of Cortland Menswear.

"So you're just going to stay here?" Rachel asked. "Until Friday?"

Lauren nodded. "We've been here every day for the past few weeks from seven to nine, at a bare minimum. And while I could take one of the corporate coaches or a taxi back and forth to Chelsea, I'd still have to walk up to my apartment like this, and back through the lobby downstairs like this, and from the car to either building like this." She grimaced. "No, if I'm here, it's just the same two dozen people that see me. And it helps, I think, that there are more women in this office than men."

That was a fair point. In an office of twenty-five people, the women outnumbered the men three to two. Of the twelve lawyers who worked in Suite 2600, only four were women, but between the administrative staff and the paralegals, the gender balance was tipped towards the female sex. But it wasn't as if this were a women's only locker room, a point well illustrated by the appearance, and subsequent disappearance, of Dmitri's head from around the corner.

"Whoa!" Dmitri yawped. He took a single step out of his office, but upon seeing Lauren and her lack of clothing, he ducked backed into his office and issued a loud apology.

"What are you doing back here?" Dmitri asked loudly, standing around the corner and out of view. "I thought you were still at the hospital?"

"I just checked out," Lauren answered, blushing from head to toe. Danny had seen her in the nude, but she'd been in the midst of collapsing in allergic shock. Adams, as well as Dr. Manzano and Dr. Suiki had seen her nude, but they were all doctors. Dmitri was the first of her colleagues to see her naked in this setting, and Lauren knew that she was going to have to get used to it.

"Rachel said that you had some sort of allergy to your clothes?" he asked. He paused, though not long enough for the blonde girl to issue a response, and added, "I take it they didn't get that figured out?"

"Stress," she replied. "It's more psychological than physical. I'm here because the psychiatrist and I believed that it might help to work through it."

"Like putting a claustrophobic in small space? Or forcing someone afraid of heights to climb a ladder? That sort of thing?"

"Sort of."

"Or, in this case," Rachel interjected, "forcing a gymnophobic back to work in the nude."

Lauren shot her friend a sarcastic smile. "I'm not a gymnophobic."

"An agora-gymnophobic?" Dmitri asked. "Someone afraid of nudity in public?"

"We're all agora-gymnophobic," Lauren huffed. Well, most of us, she thought. The receptionist, Melissa Cox, didn't seem terribly fearful of wearing revealing clothing to work. And it wasn't as if Lauren would have been surprised if creepy Charlie Peasgood, upstairs on the nineteenth floor, turned out to be a flasher. "But I'm here, in the office, in the nude. I think it's painfully obvious that the fear of nudity is not the issue here."

"Okay," the man replied from around the corner.

"It's just, apparently, between Evelyn Apparel and Cortland Menswear, I've just been focused on nothing but clothes, and my body decided to abuse me for the stress it's been under by coming up with this ironic punishment."

"So why you?" Dmitri asked, a question that was met with thoughtful silence.

"Dmitri, you can come out," Lauren sighed, exasperated by the way they were conversing. She didn't relish the idea of him seeing her as she was just now, but she was going to have to get used her public exposure at some point. And Dmitri was going to see her eventually.

Tentatively, he stepped from his office. But rather than rake his eyes up and down on Lauren's nude form, he awkwardly made and kept eye contact with the girl, demonstrating total concentration on her blue eyes. He asked again, "So why you?"

"I don't know, Dmitri," the girl answered. All three of them were working on the acquisition, even though Lauren, the youngest of the three, had been named the principal. She supposed that had some to do with it, shouldering the primary responsibility for the contract's completion. The added pressure of her potential promotion hanging in the balance couldn't have helped, either.

The conversation dragged on for a few minutes longer, the man's awkward rigidity not subsiding. Eventually, though, Dmitri excused himself, announcing that he had actually been planning on going home to Natalia before Lauren had arrived. Natalia was expecting him, after all. And he didn't want to let Natalia down. Given how much he was working, he hardly saw Natalia at all any more. Natalia, Natalia, Natalia. It was if Dmitri was trying to purge the image of Lauren's naked body from his mind by reminding himself of his fidelity to his wife.

Lauren let herself into her office as Dmitri disappeared down the hall and out of the suite. Someone had collected her things from the conference room -- the intern, Jessica, she assumed -- and placed them on her desk. There were print-outs of the various acquisition contracts, books on corporate legal loopholes, and information about Cortland's legal structure. The basic structure of the deal had been hammered out weeks ago, by Paul McIntosh's team up in Corporate Development, and Lauren felt that she could recite the bullet points from memory by this point. It was up to her, however, to fill in the blanks, hammer out the details, and prevent any wiggle-room on the part of Cortland's management and shareholders.

Lauren glanced out her window at the Midtown Manhattan skyline. Luckily, the Lane-Russet Building had reflective windows, preventing her neighbors on Madison Avenue from seeing the girl's naked form. There would be plenty of gawkers inside the office tomorrow, she told herself, but was thankful that she didn't have to worry about someone next door with a pair of binoculars.

The girl couldn't say that she'd ever been curious about what it might be like to work in the nude, but she was experiencing it in real life, nonetheless. She slipped off her heels and settled down in her chair, her ass once again exposed to the sensation of bare skin against leather. At least, from behind her desk, only her breasts would be exposed. Lauren spread out the papers she'd been working on at the hospital and began to incorporate her afternoon's work into her larger opus.

Rachel stayed for a bit longer, but the two girls were focused on the tasks at hand. By ten o'clock, Lauren was alone in the suite, her office's overhead flourescents the lone source of light in a dark hallway. Three hours passed quickly, and before Lauren was even aware of it, the clock had struck one.

She was tired, the day's stress and events taking their toll. She yawned. Spotting a small duffel bag in the corner, Lauren decided she'd go take a shower, of sorts, in the ladies' room. Though the duffel hadn't been touched in weeks, it held everything that Lauren usually brought with her to the gym -- a sleeveless mesh tank top, one of her sports bras, a pair of tight-fitting black stretch pants, a pair of simple gray cotton panties, a small yellow bath towel, and various shampoos, soaps, and lotions for the shower. Only then, as she was inventorying the contents of her exercise bag, did Lauren realize that she'd been in such a hurry to leave the hospital that she'd left behind all the clothes she'd worn that day.

"Oh, shit," she exclaimed aloud. Dr. Cherry had taken them all -- the blazer, the blouse, the pants, the bra, and her underwear -- to run tests, but it was only just now registering to Lauren that she'd never given them back. She'd call about them tomorrow, she told herself. It wasn't that they were overly expensive or irreplaceable, as each and every item had been purchased from Evelyn Lane or Eve Intimates with her employee discount. But she would eventually want to return home dressed in something other than her workout clothes. She was getting ahead of herself, and she knew as much; it would be Friday afternoon before she'd need to worry about getting dressed again. For now, she just wanted to clean up and go to sleep.

Carrying the whole back over her shoulder, Lauren tip-toed down the hall. At every corner, she was afraid that someone else was going to jump out her, catch her in the nude. The motion sensors turned the lights on as she made her way back to the reception desk, but instead of exiting the suite, Lauren kept going. She walked past the kitchen, the conference room, and the first two offices, finally coming to a stop outside of Danny's.

For late afternoon meetings, it wasn't unheard of for Danny Baldwin to shave in the men's room, preventing a five o'clock shadow. Lauren let herself into her colleague's office, flipping the light switch and finding what she was looking for -- his Mach 3 razor, a spare set of disposable blades, and a can of shaving cream stored on the top shelf of his closet. She helped herself to all three, carrying them in her fingers back past the reception desk, across the elevator lobby, and down the long hall beside the Audit department to the ladies' room.

Given that the girl was going to be naked in front of all of her coworkers in the morning, Lauren wanted to at least make sure that she looked her best. Maybe it shouldn't have mattered what Dick Bramley or Dmitri Antonovka or Mike Haralson or any of the women in the office thought of her body, but the girl found herself worrying about being judged. She wanted to make sure her legs were shaved, that her hair was done right, that her make-up was perfect. The only thing worse, in her mind, than being naked in front of everyone she worked with was being naked in front of everyone she worked with and leaving a bad impression.

She slipped her rings from her fingers, took her bracelet and watch from her wrists, unfastened her necklace from her around her neck, and extracted her earrings. She was, after hours of being most of the way there, completely naked from head to toe. All of her jewelry was placed to the left of the two sinks as the water warmed up.

Lauren stood in front of the sink, washing herself with soap and water. She would have much preferred a nice, warm, relaxing shower after her day. Heck, she would have settled for a cold shower instead of hovering over the sink. But she was working with what she'd been given, water falling to the floor all around her, and trickling into one of the drains in the center of the room. The cleaning staff was in and out of the men's and women's restroom at approximately 5:45PM each day, like clockwork. So, as Lauren stood barefoot on the cold tiles, she knew that the floor had been washed down, at least, that afternoon. More importantly, it met that no one in maintenance was going to come interrupt her makeshift bath.

She lathered her legs with shaving cream, Danny's particular choice having a sexy, masculine smell. But Lauren didn't stop when she reached the tops of her thighs, instead making sure that spread the white foam all around her pussy. Again, if this week was the only day that her coworkers were going to see naked, Lauren wanted to make sure they at least found her attractive. On a normal day, a normal woman got dressed in a suit or skirt that made her look good, did her hair just right, and applied make-up to her face. But Lauren was going to be significantly more exposed, and like it or not, she need to groom even her most intimate of areas. Instead of just cleaning up her bush, however, Lauren took most of it off, and was a bit unnerved by the amount of pubic hair that she was sending down the sink drain. She didn't take it all, though, leaving a thin vertical strip of dirty-blonde hair above her slit.

Lauren leaned over the sink to wash her hair. Though she knew that she'd probably be forced to do her hair again in the morning, Lauren wanted to make sure that tomorrow was perhaps the best hair day she would ever have, bar none. If she had to be naked, then she had to be naked; but seeing as how she wouldn't be able to wear any of her outfits, all she really had to play with, in terms of how she looked, was her hair. She had her jewelry, sure, but she limited to the same pieces she'd taken from her jewelry box that morning.

No, she caught herself, that wasn't entirely true -- she had a pair of big, silver hoop earrings she'd brought in about a month earlier, when Ginger had set her up on a blind date that she'd had ultimately chickened out on. And, come to think of it, there was a costume bracelet of big, fake white pearls tucked away in her desk drawer, as well, that she'd entirely forgotten about until just then. So, her hair aside, she wasn't entirely devoid of accessories for the next day.

The heels she'd worn that day were a sexy black pair of pumps, probably not the most sensible footwear for the office, but Lauren liked the way they defined her calves and accentuated her backside. They'd be a must for the morning, as they'd make her legs look longer and muscle tone look better. She wondered if ambling around the office in the heels would make her look like a stripper or a whore, but she decided the back that she was ambling around the office in the nude would be the real cause she'd look like a stripper or a whore, the heels neither aiding or abating that particular concern.

She reached for her towel, and began to dry her body off. Curious, and tantalized by the soft fabric, Lauren pulled the top around her chest, just above her breasts. She had intended to tuck it in on itself, as she did each morning when she got out of the shower. But the gentle material that had only seconds earlier felt soft against her skin now made it seem as if Lauren were trying to clothe herself in barbed wire. She dropped the towel to the ground, recoiling in pain, and watching a resurgent rash dissipate in her reflection.

"Okay," she said aloud, "no wearing the towel."

After she'd dried off, Lauren set the towel aside. She blow-dried her hair first, and then slathered her body with moisturizer. The floor itself was a bit wet, but Lauren was confident it would dry by morning, so she gathered her things and left the ladies' room behind. She put Danny's shaving cream and razor back, but stole a bottle of baby pink nail polish from the desk of Stephanie Kidd, one of the paralegals. She was going to look good tomorrow morning, from the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes.

***

Lauren Laframboise awoke Wednesday morning with a kink in her neck. If the kink had been the only challenge awaiting her that day, she would have been thankful. But yesterday's ordeal at the hospital was nothing when compared to the day that lay ahead of her. She was stark naked, in her place of business, and suffering through a psychosomatic allergy to her clothes.

She had slept on the floor of her office, behind her desk, and had used her duffel bag as a pillow. The bag was mostly empty, containing nothing more than a few pieces of work-out clothes to stuff it, meaning that Lauren had to fluff it and re-fluff it throughout the night to better support her head and neck. Obviously, without much success.

That said, it wasn't her neck, or even her nudity, that had Lauren angst-ridden just minutes after opening her eyes. Instead, it was the thought of the Cortland Menswear acquisition papers that had Lauren's muscles tense, her future with Evelyn Apparel hinging upon their successful completion by the end of the Third Quarter on Friday. The fact that she was incapable of putting on clothes was certainly a difficult challenge to overcome, but the bigger challenge was making sure the contract was flawless and complete.

As told by the digital clock on Lauren's desk, it was six thirty in the morning when she opened her eyes. She'd only gone to sleep four and half hours earlier, but Lauren knew she needed to get up and prepare for her day, as people had been trickling in as early as seven the past few weeks. She stood, and in her darkened monitor, caught sight of the image that others would be treated to all day -- her naked body.

Lauren was jaw-droppingly gorgeous, to be sure. Five-foot-four, a hundred and five pounds, measurements of 34-23-34 and C-cup breasts, the girl was pin-up material from every angle. She had long, flowing blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and milky white skin. She was fit, slender and well-toned, hardly ever missing a day at the gym before she'd been inundated by legal jargon pertaining to the Cortland acquisition.

She slipped from her office, the motion sensor lights flickering on as she headed up the hallways toward the reception desk. The sun was up, if barely, the dawn light trickling into the Midtown office building. Lauren's office, like most of those in the Legal Department's twenty-third floor suite, faced westwards towards Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue, and New Jersey beyond, but there was enough sunshine coming through the windows to light Lauren's path even without the overhead fluorescent bulbs. Completely naked from head toe, with even her shoes and jewelry still in her office, Lauren pattered past the bank of elevators, around the corner from the Audit Department's reception desk, and down the hall to the ladies' room.

A bit clearer an image than that in her darkened computer screen, Lauren's reflection smiled back at her as she entered the pink-tiled bathroom. Thankfully, her hair didn't look at that bad, the long, flowing locks maintaining the full body and subtle curls she'd introduced the night before. Further south, Lauren did a double take when she remembered just how much hair she'd removed from her crotch, only the thin strip of dirty blonde pubic hair remaining above her pussy.

After relieving herself and freshening up in the bathroom, Lauren got herself a cup of coffee and returned to her office, and to her desk, and began to get about her day. She had a long morning ahead of her, a long afternoon after that, and a long Thursday and Friday awaiting her when the day was through. The first thing she did that morning was to compose an email to her boss, Dick Bramley, one of the company's three Deputy General Counsels. Carbon copying his assistant Lorraine, Lauren requested a meeting with him as soon as he arrived, to discuss the repercussions of the previous day's trip to the emergency room and Lauren's subsequent decision as to how best to handle the diagnosis.